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SLS and Orion

Lightfoot Tries a SLS Hail Mary Pass

By Keith Cowing
NASA Watch
February 15, 2017
Filed under
Lightfoot Tries a SLS Hail Mary Pass

Acting NASA Administrator Lightfoot Memo: Agency Update – Feb. 15, 2017
“Related to that, I have asked Bill Gerstenmaier to initiate a study to assess the feasibility of adding a crew to Exploration Mission-1, the first integrated flight of SLS and Orion. I know the challenges associated with such a proposition, like reviewing the technical feasibility, additional resources needed, and clearly the extra work would require a different launch date. That said, I also want to hear about the opportunities it could present to accelerate the effort of the first crewed flight and what it would take to accomplish that first step of pushing humans farther into space. The SLS and ORION missions, coupled with those promised from record levels of private investment in space, will help put NASA and America in a position to unlock those mysteries and to ensure this nation’s world preeminence in exploring the cosmos.
There has been a lot of speculation in the public discourse about NASA being pulled in two directions – what has come before and what we want to do now. At NASA, this is an “and” proposition, not an “or.” To get where we want to go, we need to work with the companies represented at the SLS and ORION suppliers conference AND those industry partners that work with us in other areas across the country – all of whom have the long-term view on this work. We must work with everyone to secure our leadership in space – and we will.”

Keith’s note: Lots of implications from this sudden announcement – these come to mind.
1. Show me the money. NASA has been slipping SLS launches to right faster than the calendar itself moves. In so doing it is gobbling up financial resources that were already inadequate. To make this crew on EM-1 fantasy happen would require a pile of money that the SLS itself would have problems launching.
2. ASAP and other advisory panels are already on record questioning whether SLS’s Interim Cryogenic Propulsion Stage (ICPS) can/should be human-rated since it is only going to be used once. Add in chronic SLS software verification problems at MSFC and there are already serious doubts that the very first SLS rocket will be launched on time without humans on board. Add in the complexity of humans and a system that is already struggling is going to become more bogged down. And there is no way that the Exploration Upper Stage (EUS) would be ready to support EM-1.
3. Lightfoot is being rather dismissive – and misleading – when he tries to gloss over the very real divisions within the Trump Administration with regard to NASA’s direction. They are very real. One faction led by Newt Gingrich and Bob Walker is pushing strongly for a commercial-centric expansion of commerce from LEO to cis-lunar space, the lunar surface, and beyond. The other faction – headquartered in Alabama – is surgically welded to he SLS/Orion, big government spending status quo. Right now, where you stand depends on where you sit – and what you stand to gain – or lose.
4. Expected NASA Administrator nominee Bridenstine, a staunch commercial space advocate, has seen his nomination stalled by a variety of things – most notably a White House staffer who used to work for Rep. Mo Brooks (R-AL). Its the Alabama cabal – the pro SLS/Orion team at work trying to gum up the works. The longer Brindenstine’s nomination is delayed, the stronger the hold Robert Lightfoot, a card carrying member of the Alabama SLS/Orion cabal, has on staying in the top job – or possibly as Deputy as a consolation to the Alabama cabal. Trump Administration Beach Head members are already being pulled into one camp or the other – and the leaks of internal differences on policy are making their way to the media.
5. Last week the Commercial Spaceflight Federation’s chair unexpectedly announced that the CSF was suddenly dropping its long-standing objections to the government-built SLS, a direct inhibitor of / competitor to the commercial sector heavy lift market. Many members are upset at this sudden reversal and expect that these words of support will soon evaporate in the reality of hearings and budget stances. Moving humans onto the first SLS launch is a direct threat to commercial crew providers. By flying humans sooner this takes a lot of the wind out of the sails of commercial crew program. Given the less than enthusiastic support commercial crew had had, this could make it even harder to gain the funding needed to make commercial crew work the way that it is planned to work.
6. Whenever a NASA program – especially a big one like SLS and Orion – gets in trouble someone comes up with a Hail Mary pass to make it harder to kill. When I was at Space Station Freedom and Congress had its carving knives out we came up with something I heard called “Flag on orbit” – a node with a PV array and an antenna. The thought being that once hardware was actually in orbit it would be harder for Congress to kill the program. Look at the FGB/Node configuration that did nothing for several years and you will see how this thinking continued.
7. If flying a crew on the first mission of SLS was a wise, prudent, strategically important thing to do then the program would have baselined it in the first place. I am not certain if I have ever seen a plan for SLS (Or Ares V) where this was planned. To move this rather important milestone up now in the midst of dueling and ever-shifting policy directions – for no clearly articulated reason other than politics – starts to smell like launch fever to me – the worst kind of launch fever.
8. Cuts to discretionary spending for agencies such as NASA seem to be forthcoming. If NASA budgets will be operating under a CR to be followed by flat levels and possible cuts, the money to pay to speed up human missions on SLS will need to come from somewhere within NASA’s budget. Toss in the rhetoric about moving NASA earth science research elsewhere and/or decreasing funding for it and you have the makings of a perfect budget storm – one where the entire space community will be pitted against itself. Alas, this intentional chaos would be in synch with the new Administration’s mode of operations.

NASA Watch founder, Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA, Away Teams, Journalist, Space & Astrobiology, Lapsed climber.

53 responses to “Lightfoot Tries a SLS Hail Mary Pass”

  1. taurusII says:
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    I wonder what’s their rush, now? I guess they could fly the Orion, first time it has ever been flown for real, with a crew. We did it once before with Shuttle. Of course I remember on the 25th anniversary of STS-1, Young and Crippen said that if they had known what they did not know about the Shuttle at the time, they probably would not have done that.

    Even if they were to fly manned in 2019 or 2020-I understand that the EM1 was not going to include some things like a full operating ECLS-then the subsequent flight is still not for another couple years, and there is no real mission.

    Fly around the Moon? Explore? We’ve been there, done that, and there is currently no plan to do anything more than what was accomplished in 1968. No plan, no strategy, no goal.

    I don’t have a problem with building up a cis-lunar capability -but Orion does not do that- and I don’t have a problem with establishing a long term capability on the lunar surface, but Orion does not do that either.

    So what is the point? What is their rush?

    • Salvador Nogueira says:
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      Being there is important. Been there, done that? That may well be, but it was a loooong time ago. The Trump administration is all about projection of force. Having people around the Moon in three years is one hell of a projection. That is politics. And that is reason enough. It was for Apollo.

      • Jeff2Space says:
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        It was for Apollo because we were in a Space Race with the Soviet Union during the Cold War. The Cold War is over. The Soviet Union no longer exists. When President Trump froze government hiring, he exempted the military, but did *not* exempt NASA.

        Don’t pin your hopes on a NASA budget that’s increased “bigly”. It’s just not going to happen.

        • Salvador Nogueira says:
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          The Cold War is over, but a new dispute upon cislunar space is upon us all. And the space program makes great headlines. Trump could use some. And no extra budget required. Just a cut in Earth sciences. (I of course disagree, but Trump would love to do just that.)

          • Jeff2Space says:
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            What “new dispute upon cislunar space”?

          • Salvador Nogueira says:
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            Dr. Paul Spudis talks a lot about this, how China has used its lunar program as a projection of its capabilities of maneuvering in cislunar space. He mentioned this in his testimony to the House last year: http://docs.house.gov/meeti

            It is clear also that cislunar space will be important in the upcoming years not only as a strategic asset, but also as a commercial one, with several companies planning to develop it for mining, tourism, and science applications.

            Although that does’t require a man around the moon by 2020, I’m sure America would like to have the upper hand on this in the upcoming decade. (And I am an impartial observer about this, since I’m Brazilian and I live in Brazil.)

          • Daniel Woodard says:
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            China is not in a race with the US or anyone else. As my Chinese friend says, “If you want to race to the Moon, go ahead. We will not race with you. You will be racing by yourself.”

          • Salvador Nogueira says:
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            Nobody is saying there’s a race. Well, certainly not me or Spudis. What I’m saying (and he’s saying, I guess) is that the cislunar space will become an arena for strategic, commercial and military action in the upcoming years, and China is aware of that and moving towards proving its capabilities in that context. America certainly wishes to be on top of this. That’s all.

          • Michael Spencer says:
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            While I appreciate the insights from your Chinese friend ffered from time to time, on this one I have to wonder.

            The Chinese have, among other advantages, a sense of time that is unmatched in the west (and is to be admired). Indeed the tortoise and the hare come to mind. And when I think of any ‘moon race’ I am reminded of activities in the South China Sea: a new island here, a new airfield there, and soon enough you have domination.

          • Jeff2Space says:
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            I don’t think the US cares one bit whether or not China fields a manned lunar mission more than 50 years after Apollo 11 did it first. In fact, that achievement is “damning with faint praise”.

          • Salvador Nogueira says:
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            Yes. The US also didn’t care about satellites during the internacional geophysical year. And then came Sputnik.

            Watch out for another Sputnik.

          • Jeff2Space says:
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            Which would be what exactly? China is still very busy repeating what the US and USSR did in the 1960s and 1970s. Come back in 5+ years when China is actually doing something that hasn’t been done before, like landing on an asteroid or a Martian moon.

          • Salvador Nogueira says:
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            China will land on the far side of the Moon next year. That has never been done before. 😉

          • Jeff2Space says:
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            That will be a first for an unmanned lunar mission and is sure to yield lots of new scientific data. But, it won’t lead to the creation of a new “Space Race” by any stretch of the imagination.

    • Robert Rice says:
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      You are so right my friend…why does it take over a decade to build a modern…but still old school capsule….won’t it be in need of upgrades..modernization…even before it flys..can’t we do better…

    • Michael Spencer says:
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      “What is their rush?”

      The 2020 election.

      Keith’s point #5 – that this proposal is a threat to CC – assumes the presence of a thoughtful assessment on the part of the Administration.

  2. Salvador Nogueira says:
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    I saw this coming.
    And I understand Keith’s concerns and criticisms.
    However, we KNOW human spaceflight is fueled primarily by politics. If the new administration feels having humans aboard EM-1 is worthy, and PAYS for it (that’s the hard part actually), that’s what will be done. There are several technical hurdles, but no technical dealbreaker. It can be done.

    • JJMach says:
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      Just because a thing can be done, does not make it wise to do so. No technical dealbreaker? How about:
      — First flight of the SLS rocket
      — First flight of the significantly modified Orion capsule and its life support system
      — First flight of the completely redesigned Orion Thermal Protection System

      That’s three pole-vaults, not hurdles, right off the top of my head, and for what? There is nothing for the astronauts to do in EM-1 other than to not die. This is a Spam-in-a-Can mission less worthy than the first Mercury shot.

      Sure, we are testing the hell out of all of those, but as my professor wisely observed: “Nature makes no assumptions.”

      • Salvador Nogueira says:
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        Look, I’m not saying it is wise. I’m just saying it CAN be done. It was done with Apollo 8 (very first CM on the moon, and with crew onboard), and it was done again with STS-1 (very first Shuttle flight, with crew onboard). Was it wise? No. Was it successful? Hell yeah. Should NASA do it again? I think not, really. For me, the best rationale for men around the moon in 2020 would be Falcon Heavy/Dragon Crew, since both could get numerous Earth orbit test flights (with and without crew) before 2020. But could it be done with SLS/Orion, using EM-1? Yes. I suspect Lightfoot is using this a last resort to save SLS/Orion. If the administration sets up a goal of men around the moon in 2020, the only way SLS/Orion could do it before FH/DC would be with EM-1.

        • Michael Spencer says:
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          Apollo capsule flew several times in orbit around earth starting with Apollo 4; 8 was unique only because of distance.

          • Salvador Nogueira says:
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            But critically unique since the fail of its engine would mean the astronauts would be stranded in lunar orbit. In some ways, EM-1 is safer, since it is a free return trajectory mission.

  3. SouthwestExGOP says:
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    Yes this is like the FGB/Node 1 exercise – the hope is that once you have some hardware flying it will be harder to kill a program. Like when Constellation flew the Ares 1-X, they wanted to show that they had a constituency as well, people working so that the elected officials would want to preserve those jobs. Sometimes it works sometimes it does not.

    This memo tells us that Lightfoot is very worried about SLS/Orion. If NASA had the resources they could just plan on this – the fact that they have not planned it says that they do not have the resources.

    One big question is – would the first flight be safe for people? The answer is a resounding NO. When NASA is trying to preserve the program they cut costs and that means testing, analysis, schedule. So do we want to risk people on a program that has rushed to the launch pad (again)??? NASA would find people who would sign up for the flight, after ten years training some crew members could justify taking the risk.

  4. JadedObs says:
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    Seems to me that the SLS/Orion programs are damned if they do & damned if they don’t. If they don’t fly with a crew until 2021 / 2023 then critics will charge that its a boondoggle program that will never do human exploration; if they launch a crew around the moon for the first time in almost 50 years in 2018/2019, opponents will say, what’s the rush, why bother, we’ve done it before, etc.
    In fact, we will benefit from a crewed “shakedown cruise” even if goes to a place todays’ grandparents last saw up close. Most of our country and most of the world has never personally lived in a time when humans – and most especially Americans – left Earth for another body in the solar system; this gets them that opportunity to have their “earthrise” moment – but in high def, real time and with astronauts who are still very much involved in getting ready for the next mission.
    A lunar flyby in this decade will inspire students and the nation – just look at the reaction to the EFT-1 test! As for where the money will come from, public enthusiasm over a lunar flyby will lead to more money not less – no Buck Rodgers, no bucks!

    • muomega0 says:
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      NASA continued to send men to the moon long after the public lost interest. The suggestion is to add multiple destinations. Trips to L2 Voyager can demonstrate that the equipment and crew can survive the journey to Mars in the proper environment. Variable gravity studies increase flight rate and provide data to make future mission decisions. Crew landing on asteroids would be cool and quite inspirational. If the hardware is designed for reuse and ‘to Mars’ then it can be adapted to lunar as well. Multiple programs and missions reduces the cost dramatically, rather than 8B+ per event. Technology and science included.

      ‘To Mars’ is ~200mT/yr. 2 providers would only need 10-20mT LV capacity to provide ISS and ‘to Mars’ capability, 5-10 launches annually. Risk with reuse further reduces costs with little financial penalty launching dirt, cheap, Class D propellant, which is 80% of the mass. Increased flight rate reduces costs, potential for new markets or global internet 10X faster. SLS/Orion costs 2-3B/yr and 2 launches eliminates the need for reuse and creating new markets, not to mention the lack of cash for missions. Shift HLV $ to payloads, technology.

      • Robert Rice says:
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        Why does Orion even need to go for the ride to Mars…it’s a taxi…no need to drag it along with a Mars bound ship.
        Just send another up to pick up the crew when they return…two years later

    • Buckaroo says:
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      Putting a crew on the first integrated test flight of SLS/Orion is insanity. The geopolitical forces that made such a risk acceptable in the past no longer exist. Risking both the lives of astronauts and the future of US manned spaceflight for the sake of bread and circuses is beyond irresponsible.

      • taurusII says:
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        “geopolitical forces that made such a risk acceptable in the past”

        With the sole exception of the first flight of the Space Shuttle, such a risk was NEVER acceptable in the past. In Project Mercury, aside from the launch escape tests (9 flight tests), there were 2 suborbital Mercury flight tests on Redstones and 6 Mercury orbital tests on Atlas missiles. Their were 2 unmanned Gemini flight tests on Titan missiles. (note that all the Redstone, Atlas and Titan missiles were proven before use in the 3 programs.

        For Apollo, aside from launch escape system tests (5 Little Joe II flights) there were 2 CSM tests on Saturn 1b’s and 2 CSM tests on Saturn V before the first manned orbital CSM flight (Apollo 7) and the first manned Saturn V flight (Apollo 8). There was also a n unmanned LM flight on a Saturn 1b prior to the first manned use of the LM.

        So the idea that any US astronaut rode a new rocket and spacecraft on its first flight is not accurate.

        • Buckaroo says:
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          Sure, I agree. Brevity came at the expense of nuance. I was thinking specifically of STS-1, and also of the general climate of risk acceptance in the 60s as a result of the cold war. I think we’re on the same page.

    • Vladislaw says:
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      ” just look at the reaction to the EFT-1 test! “

      What reaction?

  5. Robert Rice says:
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    My issue with SLS is that it’s a rocket without a mission…ok..go circle the moon…then what…ARM? Hope it is dead! so what do we do with it….Mars is just talk….no lunar lander…ok..maybe we launch some interplanetary probes….but how do you keep a production line going ….if you have no where to go…notional planshave always existed…never anything solid

  6. Jeff2Space says:
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    Flying a crew on EM-1 would not be prudent, IMHO. We’re very lucky that STS-1 came back in one piece.

  7. taurusII says:
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    I think it is meaningless unless we know why we are going. It is not exploration if we are only repeating what we have previously accomplished, and with no plan for the future.

    If we are going back to the moon to reap its rich resources, then that might be good. Tell me what systems are being established to support that goal. Orion does not accomplish that. It is not even necessarily a step in that direction.

    Orion is a larger, heavier, far more expensive repeat of a flags and footprints era return capsule. Far cheaper alternatives to Orion are available. Then rest of the system is not in work because the mission is not even defined.

  8. DP Huntsman says:
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    Agree with most of the intent of your assessment, Keith.

  9. DP Huntsman says:
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    I said this somewhere else; but I feel strongly enough about it to say it here as well.

    I was (and still am) a proud, card-carrying member of the NASA/contractor space shuttle team; having been directly involved from 1974 through and including the first 30 missions. Out of the several top lessons I would have hoped we should have learned from our experience there, it would be to never, ever, not do an uncrewed test flight first ever again. (And by test flight, I mean of the full-up systems that the first crew will have to ride on and in). To even consider it – short of a national emergency where Bruce Willis might have to climb into it and save us from the asteroid – is, in my personal view, absolutely irresponsible. And I’m guessing most of my compatriots here in NASA (silently) agree. It can’t be justified, other than on purely political grounds. And that’s not supposed to be the type of experience-and data-based decision making we make here in NASA.

    • Daniel Woodard says:
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      I agree. As I-Shih Chang elegantly demonstrates, launch vehicle reliability cannot be predicted by analysis for the simple reason that most major contingencies are the result of unanticipated failure modes. He shows mathematically and with ample historical data that most launch vehicles do not reach a stable reliability level until they have had at least half a dozen launches.
      See page 23: http://aerospace.wpengine.n… Moreover once a vehicle becomes “man rated” it is more difficult to implement design changes needed to eliminate failure modes.

  10. Gerald Cecil says:
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    This is a dead end. Far more inspirational/aspirational would use SLS to place a BA330 or two into cislunar space then start crew rotations with a Dragon 2 on a FH. Now that would highlight synergy between a govt heavy booster and commercial crew. If one doesn’t recover the FH core stage, is FH + a small service module that we haven’t heard of able to do this?

  11. Tally-ho says:
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    It’s like you are 90% done with the design, qualification, and assembly of a new 2 door coupe and having the CEO come by and ask what it would take to call it a 7 seat minivan. It’s not like you just squeeze some seats and airbags into it.

    • Internet Person says:
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      Excellent point. Nearly every SLS design decision has some dependence on the vehicle being unmanned.

  12. numbers_guy101 says:
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    A curious chess move by SLS upper management and defenders. Possibly, hearing for weeks (maybe months) about commercial advocates talking up plans to do something significant within 4 years, the SLS made the classic counter move called “me too”. Thinking this will neutralize at least, or confuse more likely, anyone in the new administration who might have been allurred by the thought of a grand commercial partnership push with something in under 4 years.

    Like the saying goes about no plan surviving contact…

    Have to hand it to them, especially as the SLS just needs to pop commercial momentum, and not actually do what they say here about crew on EM-1. They’ll just cancel that plan in a year once the all clear is called, citing “after consideration…etc.”

    Next move…

  13. RocketScientist327 says:
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    No – its about the ever increasing weight of the program itself sucking up more and more resources to accomplish less. All of this was discussed in depth in 2010 and 2011 by the opponents of SLS.

  14. taurusII says:
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    Its fine to get to the moon and back if you do not mind throwing away 1/2 or 2/3 of the entire human space flight annual budget every time you use one. Apollo was not sustainable and Orion most definitely will not be. This thing was oversized for its purpose and over budget for a vehicle that could have been and was designed 50 years ago, and with modern electronic systems that ought to have made the vehicle far simpler and less expensive. Talk about a “NASA/industrial complex” contract that was far too high for what we get, and add to that sheer stupidity for designing a throw away system. Stupidity cubed. A waste. We ought to be looking at who is responsible for it and make sure they are never allowed to work in aerospace again.

  15. Saturn1300 says:
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    Sounds good to me. http://www.spaceflightinsid…. Interesting old article. Use a Peacekeeper missile. Got to do this abort test first. USAF has just fit tested , by O-ATK a rocket to launch a satellite this summer. This gets the launch facility ready for the abort test with the same Minotaur. This would just be a SLS test flight. Go a long orbit to make sure everything is ok, then go do a long loop of the Moon.

    • Michael Spencer says:
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      OT: Is anyone else having problems with hyperlinks? Just started in the past month or so; Safari chokes saying it cannot connect to redirect.viglink.com. I get viglink and I know what it is trying to do. But I’m running a clean Safari and cannot follow posted links because of it.
      /OT

      • taurusII says:
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        Might be related to Windows 10. I noticed a lot of what used to work with Chrome on WIndows 10 no longer works. Works fine with Microsoft Edge. I think Microsoft has been ‘optimizing’ their products to work together and force people away from other browsers.

  16. Joe From Houston says:
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    This article is saying to me that if we don’t throw a Hail Mary Pass by committing someone to fly on the first mission after taking a huge chunk out of NASA’s budget, the garage door closes automatically on the whole program. Its like someone is throwing a kid under the automatically closing garage door to trigger the sensor to raise the garage door. Something tells me if this doesn’t work, the goal strategists have other tricks up their sleeve.
    On the other hand, another article published right next to this one says NASA is preparing to get a huge politically motivated budget cut in which RIFs rise up and shake up or collapse the entrenched industry that soaks up most of the budget with little to show for it.
    If all of these battles come to fruition, the commercial space industry is going to benefit since they are completely immune to government sourcing by definition.

  17. Bad Horse says:
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    Musk recently met with Trump twice – two business men.
    Musk may have sold him on the idea of a Falcon 9 heavy and a simple flyby of the moon with a Dragon (or maybe even Orion) in 2019. Others may have helped with that idea . If NASA wants to put a crew
    around the Moon in two years with Orion, they need to fly on an Delta IV heavy (and buy it today).

  18. Bad Horse says:
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    Many people working SLS never thought it would fly or it might fly only once before being abandoned. When your NASA software safety mgmt. dose not care about quality, you know it will never fly. Many of the issues with SLS go back to Ares. The original reason for building Ares I @ MSFC was to teach NASA engineers how to build a rocket. Over the decades after Apollo all that experience moved to industry and matured (Just as it should have!) to the point NASA is no longer needed.

    Many of the contractors working Ares left MSFC, but the NASA mgmt.
    stayed and that is the crux of the problem. To many (but not in any way all) incompetent, corrupt and just plan entitled and lazy civil servants. That needs to change before NASA has a chance to build anything that will safely fly.

  19. Jackalope3000 says:
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    Exactly. Think of all the objects in space that you are aware of. And now go out and look up at the night sky. Only one of them is anything except a dot. And except for orbital mapping and six “weekend equivalent” excursions on the visible side near the equator, it is completely unexplored and its resources completely untapped. If its too hard to exploit something that close, we’re never going to the rest of the solar system.

  20. Daniel Woodard says:
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    Helium 3 is easily manufactured on Earth and is not even particularly expensive. By comparison, separating it from lunar regolith would be unbelievably difficult. https://en.wikipedia.org/wi

    • Michael Spencer says:
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      Not to mention that fact that mining and smelting in the lunar environment are totally beyond our capabilities.